The Big Lebowski on blu-ray....well, that was a mixed bag. Color & saturation were very good but the image has been DNR'ed something fierce. Waxy faces and a lack of detail abound. For the most part it is better looking than the DVD but I can't help but feel Universal dropped the ball again on another key catalog title.

"The most dementing of all modern sins: the inability to distinquish excellence from success."-David Hare

Machete - Watching it again, I still had a blast with it. It knows it's an exploitation flick, the actors know it is, and everyone revels in it. I know some of you guys don't like the political slant it takes -- but that goes with the territory. I would love to see R. Rodriguez do two more Machete films than the puketastic kiddie movies like Spy Kids and Shorts!.

"Aliens conquering Earth would be fine with me, as long as they make me their queen."- Gillian Anderson

Dan Mancini wrote:Conan the Barbarian (2011)I'm too tainted by nostalgia to say that it's better than Milius' movie, but it's undoubtedly a closer adaptation of Robert E. Howard's writings. Is Momoa a better Conan than Schwarzenegger? No doubt about it. There are shots where he looks like a Frazetta painting brought to life. He handles the dialogue just fine (people complaining that the movie sounds too "modern" are just wrong-footed by the fact that the actors aren't throwing around bad British accents, but British accents are no less incongruous in the Hyborian age than American accents, so who cares?). And his fighting is pure awesome. There's nothing martial artsy about whatsoever. It's raw, brutal, and not at all constrained by fairness or decency.

The thing I was most worried about going in was that the flick would be a nightmare of bad CGI, but Marcus Nispel uses technology well throughout (mostly). There are CG enhancements to traditional shots, for sure, but they're mostly subtle and believable. More than anything, he uses CG to do what it does best: replace old school matte paintings. He does a good job of keeping it out of the action scenes. The scene in which Conan fights the sand dudes? The transitions where they form from or collapse back into sand are CGI (as you'd expect), but during the actual fighting it's all stunt men in make-up, as it should be.

Is the movie flawed? Definitely. There are more than a few clunky moments (Conan's birth chief among them). I wish they hadn't lifted the revenge plotline from Milius' movie. And there's an entire action set piece that's essentially a non sequitur (Conan and another dude spend 10 minutes breaking into the bad guy's castle, only to watch him parading away outside the castle walls). Also, as much as Ron Perlman makes a fantastic barbarian chieftain (and he does), the entire beginning of the movie is redonkulous in how fervently it tries to establish young Conan's badass credentials. The whole thing borders on self-parody until the switch to Momoa as Conan.

If you're a Conan fan, you should dig it. Just don't go in expecting an action opus on the level of Ironclad or 13 Assassins.

I'm pretty much in the same camp. I really enjoyed it, despite several flaws. Overall, I think Nispel grasped how to translate the essence of Howard's stories into cinematic terms. Like you said, it's often like a Frazetta painting come alive.

I have to take issue with your suggestion that those of us thinking it sounded too modern are merely thrown by the lack of British accents in a historical setting. That's not the issue. After all, we aren't dealing with history. Moreover, I had no problem with Perlman's American accent or McGowan's, nor with James Earl Jones in Milius' flick. The problem is that the language of fantasy stories like this inspired by classical writing, biblical translations and the like. The language is filled with grand statements, free of contractions. It demands enunciation, round tones and a deliberate rhythm. Momoa is a fantastic Conan most of the time but, when things quiet down, he delivers lines in flat, rushed spurts that sounds like he's playing at a Ren Fair. There are British actors who have the same problems with fantasy dialogue, though they tend to be fewer and farther between.

Don't Be Afraid of the DarkA remarkable achievement--an R rated horror film with almost zero scares or sense of dread. The only jolt I experienced came from a flash of lightning. How Ebert gave this 3.5 stars (which sent me running to the theater) is an utter mystery.

Live and Let Die – not the most ridiculous Roger Moore Bond flick, but even for his first outing as our favourite British secret agent, it’s right up there in delivering a taste of the incredible silliness the Moore Bond films would become. Don’t get me wrong though, still a pretty enjoyable waste of two hours

Don't worry darling, its just a hat, belonging to a small man of limited means who lost a fight with a chicken!

Midnight in Paris - I'm not a Woody Allen fan by any means, but I was impressed. It's refreshing to see Owen Wilson doing something different than doing inane studio comedies, and both Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard shine. Beautifully photographed and it's nice to see Allen embracing stereo sound for once.

"Aliens conquering Earth would be fine with me, as long as they make me their queen."- Gillian Anderson

Fistful of Dollars - re-watched this on Blu after reading the Leone chapter in "Horizon's West" by Jim Kitses, and have come away from a new respect for Leone's classic. Outside of that, it is still entertaining as hell.

The Red Shoes (1948) - So exquisitely photographed and the climatic 16 minute ballet sequence is a flawless exercise in cinematography, music, and editing. It's an intensely visual but poetic film, and something I wished Darren Aronofsky had used inspiration for Black Swan.

"Aliens conquering Earth would be fine with me, as long as they make me their queen."- Gillian Anderson